Willie Nelson turned in yet another fine performance on a balmy Sunday evening at Marymoor Park, a few miles outside of Seattle. If you plan on taking up the guitar, let me know how long it takes to wear a hole through it. Willie is 70.
Just in case you hadn't heard, Fountains of Wayne has released another excellent CD, Welcome Interstate Managers. They whisked through Seattle this week (don't miss some upcoming TV appearances at the end of their current tour) and we had a fine time catching up and listening to yet another live set of perfectly crafted and flawlessly executed power pop. I became somewhat nostalgic for my brief stint as a roadie for the band back in the old days....
A while back I read Among the Thugs by Bill Buford (former editor of Granta). It portrays British football "supporters" ("fans") and their alcoholic, racist, violent, mostly despicable behaviors. It is well written reporting from inside the combat zone, sort of like Hunter S. Thompson, only with two lagers and a packet of crisps and no authorial cursing and rambling and hallucinations and psychotic episodes.
If that Catcher cover caused ol' J.D. to switch publishers, I have to wonder if this lurid cover is what sent him into seclusion. This is a British imprint of the book known in America as 9 Stories, printed around 1960 on very cheap, acidic paper. Some sort of printer's code remains at the lower left of every 16th page, probably to help the bookbinder put the thing together in the correct order. I've never noticed these codes before, so I imagine that in most books that part of the page containing the code is trimmed off. Or maybe it's like the 'end of reel' signals in films - invisible until you see one, then hard to miss. There are also some great typos, e.g. "need listmen" for "enlisted men".
I bought this book because the cover has so little to do with the contents. Anyone expecting to find the sultry stare depicted on the cover will be sorely disappointed by the thirteen year old British orphan that Esme turns out to be.
If you are talking on a portable phone and walking an unleashed dog on the heavily pedestrian- and cycle-trafficked Burke-Gilman Trail, on the right-hand side of the pavement (i.e., with your back to traffic approaching from behind you), should you be startled when someone on a bicycle passes you? Could this really be the very first time such a thing has happened to you today? A cyclist may alert you of his/her approach with bell or voice, but if your traffic-side ear is otherwise occupied, it is possible you might be oblivious to the cyclist's best efforts.
And of course, what the untethered dog is going to do is anyone's guess.
A visit from Anne and Sarah Stevenson, escorted by their imposing bodyguard.
(Note: participants may recall that other subjects were included in the original photos; the photographer's poor lighting choices forced him to edit out certain glaring mistakes.)
This book marks my first encounter with J.D. Salinger. The book belongs to my father, as evidenced by his name on the inside cover. It looks like he purchased it sometime after 1960. Twelve passages are demarcated with blue ball-point parentheses; the pages containing these passages are noted on the last page of the book. Page 101 has a lone parenthesis.
I believe this book started my habit of trying to find the precise scene in the book represented on the cover. In the New York Times Book Review, Julie Lasky says that this cover "so offended J.D. Salinger, it contributed to his decision to transfer rights from Signet to Bantam." But I suspect its similarity to a Hardy Boys cover is what made me open it in the first place.
"I wish I could see a collection of all the little pictures that decorate the tops of the pages at this site, in the form of a ridiculously large, 400K-ish JPG file that is likely best viewed over a fast connection."
This is the book from our family library where I first met Vladimir Nabokov. I have re-read these 13 stories numerous times, in fact, after reading Farenheit 451, I decided that this would be the book I would memorize. I have yet to memorize a single story.
For a pulp classic (more examples to come), this cover is pretty highbrow. Nabokov was a noted lepidopterist, but since I am not, I can't determine if this is a species that was named by or after him.
A collection of pictures long overdue:
New couch pillows, made by Becky (fabric courtesy of Stephanie and Dave).
Another visit to the Dobbins island estate.
Whale watch in the San Juans.
Sailing trip, July 4.
And of course, more garden pictures.
Wonder how long entering "weapons of mass destruction" at google will continue to yield this as the first match.
Update, Monday, July 7: Apparently not very long. But it worked on Thursday, I swear.
Update, Monday, July 14: Seems it works again today. Somewhat ironically in this case, the process of manipulating things to improve your site's ranking is called a "Google Bomb."